System Design
Designing TikTok : A System Design Guide for SDE3 & Staff Software Engineer Interviews
Designing TikTok : A System Design Guide. “TikTok isn’t just a video streaming application. It’s one of the world’s largest recommendation engines disguised as a social media app.” If you’ve ever appeared for an SDE3, Senior Software Engineer, or Staff Engineer interview, chances are you’ve encountered a system design question around YouTube, Instagram Reels, or … Read more
How to Design a URL Shortener Like TinyURL — Step-by-Step for System Design Interviews
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine — three years into his backend career, preparing hard for an SDE role at a company most of us would kill to get into – called me in a slight panic. “They asked me to How to Design a URL Shortener Like TinyURL,” he said. “I’ve used … Read more
Payment Processing Systems: A Complete Architect’s Guide
Payment Processing Systems: From a user clicking “Buy” to funds settling in a merchant’s account — a deep dive into every layer of a production-grade payment gateway, explained for beginners and senior engineers alike. 📖 18 min read | 🎓 Beginner to Advanced | 🏗 System Design & Architecture Table of Contents What is a … Read more
Demystifying What is an IP Addresses: Your Essential Guide for System Design Interviews
An IP address (Internet Protocol Address) is a unique numerical identifier assigned to every device connected to a network. It allows devices to send and receive data across the internet using protocols like IPv4 and IPv6. Table of Contents 1. Importance of IP Addresses 2. What Is an IP Address? 3. Functions of IP Addresses … Read more
OSI Model Explained: The 7 Layers of Network Communication
The OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) Model is a conceptual framework that defines how two systems communicate through a layered architecture, where each layer has a distinct role and interacts only with its immediate neighbors. It breaks complex network communication into seven manageable layers, making it easier for engineers to design, debug, and scale systems. Why … Read more
TCP/IP Protocol Stack in System Design: The Foundation of Network Communication
In modern system design, applications are no longer confined to a single server.Microservices, distributed databases, cloud APIs, and millions of connected clients all rely on efficient and reliable communication. At the heart of this communication lies the TCP/IP Protocol Stack — a layered model that defines how data moves from one system to another across … Read more
Reliability in System Design: Building Systems That Never Let You Down
When we talk about great systems whether it’s Netflix streaming billions of hours of video, or Stripe processing millions of payments — one common thread ties them all together: reliability. A reliable system doesn’t just work — it keeps working, consistently, predictably, and gracefully, even when parts of it fail. In today’s world of distributed … Read more
System Availability in System Design: A Complete Guide
Introduction – Why Availability Matters Imagine your favourite shopping site goes down during a big sale or a multiplayer game server crashes mid-match. Those outages cost money, trust, and time. Availability is the engineering discipline that reduces those risks. In this article you’ll learn: Availability in System Design: Availability is one of the most crucial … Read more
Understanding Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling in System Design
Scaling in System Design: Scaling refers to a system’s ability to handle increased load (more requests, more users, more data) by adjusting its resources. The goal is to ensure that the system continues to perform well as demand grows. There are two main types: 1. Vertical Scaling (Scaling Up) Vertical scaling means increasing the capacity … Read more